Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[EnhaloTricks]

EDIT: And what are some MU's she suffers in? Sonic is a mystery to me, because the speed and style of his game usually dumps on people with poor mobility, but at the same time he doesn't like super dominant, safe hitboxes, so thats a wash in my head. Anyone with experience or high level footage want to let me know how that one goes?

Also, I find she isn't too scary when playing as Megaman. You can safely zone her out, and if you are max range her sword doesn't have too many followups. She can't contest pellets with her sword, and her projectile is pretty useless in this scenario. She can be sniped with dair if you position it right, since there is a time when she can't use it (during double jumps) due to its short range. Otherwise, crash bomber / uair / bair / bthrow sets up most of my kills on her. Or she does something dumb and overrcommital to try and break the zoning, and utilt kills her off the top extremely early.

I did a write-up on why I believed Fox beats Corrin (55-45, -1) let me get it:

I play with a Corrin frequently so I'll put my thoughts out in a semi-organized fashion:

Fox definitely wins. Our damage output and speed really help in getting away to reset to neutral if we need to and punishing any option that Corrin picks. We don't win by a large margin, but it's less stressful than you imagine once you learn the way Corrin works.

The Neutral:

A lof of the neutral is played just running around outside of pin range trying to bait out an option. One thing to remember about Corrin is her aerials are quick and ac very well. So what you need to do is run in her range then run out really quickly until they commit or you get a read for a grab/dair/whatever. When you see her pin the ground your best bet is to just hold shield. If you shielded the pin Corrin is GOING to take damage. Just keep holding shield and punish what she does on reaction. We're quick enough that we can catch her no matter if she jumps, kicks, or cancels and this can lead to a large punish.

Utilt starts getting utility around 10-15%. Before this she can shield, and after she can nair. So shield every time after utilt just in case. She falls slow enough that she'll nair, we'll shield, and we can utilt again. From there it's pretty easy to juggle her anywhere from 30-50% more if you can read their DI and pp towards where they are.

Landing kill confirms isn't hard unless they're shielding (course). Corrin is going to try and keep you out with sh nair so just jump at them, they'll sh nair, and then Fox can ff nair/dair into usmash. Usual stuff. Just change up your approach depending on the player.

No reason to use Illusion in neutral unless you have a hard read. It's NOT safe in this MU because of the threat of DFS/B and eating 25%+. Unless you're in a tech chase situation, don't even bother with it. Corrin is also fast enough that she can pin you while in the ending lag, soooooo

Reflecting DFS is always worth it if you can, just cancel it with jump and punish. Most of the time an usmash will do the trick, but I want to lab out other follow ups that you can get. There's the potential for uairs, bair... really anything if you can time it right.

The Advantage:

We demolish Corrin here. Her aerial options are good, but aside from fair they're all really laggy. She's also mid-heavy weight so she falls into uairs perfectly. A good option against a Corrin without a DJ is to jump and bait out the counter and punish OR - if they like dair - just walk below them and bait it out. You MUST shield UNTIL Corrin hits the ground and the green "shockwave" comes out or else you'll eat the landing hitbox and get punished. Once this happens grab/utilt or whatever and get back in advantage.

Offstage we destroy Corrin. Fair AND dair can trade with her up B (which is invincible from frames 10-17 and the hitbox comes out on frame 18) and net an early kill. Imo, it's worth going for EVERY time as you'll only eat 2-3% if you get hit and don't trade, but if you do it could potentially be their stock. The risk/reward is heavily in our favor. If the Corrin saved their double jump go for the fair dragdown to footstool, otherwise they'll recover.

The Disadvantage:

This is the hard part of this MU. Corrin's aerials are MADE to combo and kill off the top. Landing vs. a Corrin is very hard since her hitboxes are so large and last a very long time. We are juggle food. Once you hit about 80% air dodging can end up with you losing a stock to uair (which did NOT get nerfed in kill power, btw). Your best bet is to just reset to a platform and hold shield until you see an opening or, if you can Illusion to the other side of the stage safely, do it. She MIGHT be able to pin you if she was too close which can kill you around 110%, so watch out for that.

Offstage is scary. You really need to mixup your recovery lest you eat a DFS/B! I've died sub 70% due to a bad Illusion that got DFS/B'd and it's not fun. Get good with your Firefox angles and try to save your double jump as much as possible. If you keep getting fair'd, it's ok. That won't kill until 130%+ so be thankful it wasn't an uair or bair! Once you manage to get on the stage you should be pretty good to get back into it.

If you end up around 130%, just laser camp until you find an opening for a hard punish. Dthrow or Uthrow will kill you if they get it so just run around and play safe.

There you go! A quick write-up on this MU. It's tough, but certainly in our favor. Both characters damage output is good, but Fox's great neutral and advantage state are hard for Corrin to contest if the Fox is playing a more bait-and-punish style.

 

[Das Koopa]

I didn't see this posted so I might as well throw it out there, ZeRo's opinion on the best player of each character:

First 10:

: Ally (HM to Anti.)
: Mr. ConCon
: Umeki (HM to SlayerZ.)
: LordMix (HM to Pollo.)
: Dabuz
: Tweek (TLDW: He acknowledges Tweek doesn't main BJ now, so this is more or less an honorary title since nobody has replicated what Tweek did with BJ.)
: Nasubi (HM to Reflex)
: The Wall
: Will (HM to Larry Lurr.)
: ZeRo

I'm most surprised that he didn't toss JMiller (for Luigi) and Raptor (for Yoshi) in there. He cites results as a reason for some of his choices - but hasn't Raptor gotten better results than The Wall, and doesn't Raptor play in a stronger region?

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

I think suffers from the fact that a ton of losing MUs are meta- namely, he suffers against rushdown pretty badly. Because of that, he's not really too useable.

However, I think he does well against the rest of the cast

Yes, he does struggle against characters like captain falcon who can exploit shulk's weaknesses quite nicely. However, he does OK against most of the cast, alothough he has more losing/even MUs than winning

 

[Ninety]

Palutena has I think the only truly unblockable attack in the game that isn't a grab (though others can break shields). The issue is that it does a piddly 5%, but imagine if it activated sooner or had an active hitbox for longer. Reflect would be absurd.

I believe a few customs, such as one of Little Mac's side Bs, are unblockable as well.

 

[Dinoman96]

Speaking of customs and Palutena, I'll always miss Explosive Flame not being blockable.

 

[sedrf]

Falln made a tier list

 

[LordMix]

Bowser the best character in the game, idc what nobody says

 

[Deleted member]

Falln made a tier list

Surprised to see Palutena placed so high when so many other top players have looked on her poorly. A pleasant surprised, nonetheless. I've been an ardent defender of her viability for quite a while, but I'm having trouble envisioning her as better than , or .

 

[AxelVDP]

I believe a few customs, such as one of Little Mac's side Bs, are unblockable as well.

there's also Mac's KO Punch (when used while grounded)

 

[Pancracio17]

Falln made a tier list

this has some questianable placements, luigi? rosa as the best? bowser as d3 tier? kirby and shulk above greninja, ike and the pits? etc. i would like some explenations

 

[Hero_2_All]

Falln made a tier list

Ya, I can see this. From when ive talked to him at locals this looks about right. He rates Corrin and luigi very highly compared to most though... That MK placement doe.... Ito cries., but hey maybe Ito gave him that placement... Ik they usually deliberate together on these things.

 

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

Do they ever give legitimate reasons as to why they place someone somewhere? I mean specifically the High-low tiers, very difficult to order them with even a little confidence.

Also surprising to see Kirby that high, I like it, but it is iffy, and surprisingly Zelda is higher too, interesting.
Cool to see that some still believe Peach has the potential.

 

[Hero_2_All]

Surprised to see Palutena placed so high when so many other top players have looked on her poorly. A pleasant surprised, nonetheless. I've been an ardent defender of her viability for quite a while, but I'm having trouble envisioning her as better than , or .

Falln frequents the same locals I do, and we have a pretty decent palutena main. The palu is not Top of the locals, but he does pretty well, definitely shows some of the strengths of palu when he plays. He does show us that shes not THAT bad (the down throw is soooooo gud, but she has hard trouble killing, and has low survive ability). First time I went up vs him in tourney I underestimated the pale Tuna and payed for it. Though weather or not this player influenced falln is only known by him.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Falln made a tier list

Well you can pretty much toss B-E tier completely out the window, and A tier ain't looking so great either. Neither does Rosalina as best character in the game.

>Marth and Lucina in the upper half of B tier, Kirby in B tier. Actually really, those characters being in B tier at all or close to it.

>Shulk above well... pretty much everyone in C tier

>Greninja, Ike, Pits, Pac-Man, Wario all that low

> Bowser that far down

> Luigi and Corrin far too high, same with Palutena

 

[Ninety]

Falln made a tier list

Damn, Lucina, Kirby and Yoshi above Greninja, Ike and Wario. I'd complain about Robin's placement but given he's in the same tier as both Dark Pit and Shulk I really don't know what to make of this.

 

[Nobie]

there's also Mac's KO Punch (when used while grounded)

I forgot about KO Punch, but I almost consider that one a special case of "ignores everything."

 

[biribiri]

Falln frequents the same locals I do, and we have a pretty decent palutena main. The palu is not Top of the locals, but he does pretty well, definitely shows some of the strengths of palu when he plays. He does show us that shes not THAT bad (the down throw is soooooo gud, but she has hard trouble killing, and has low survive ability). First time I went up vs him in tourney I underestimated the pale Tuna and payed for it. Though weather or not this player influenced falln is only known by him.

The Palu main is probably TLTC if anyone's interested.

 

[Hero_2_All]

The Palu main is probably TLTC if anyone's interested.

It is not TLTC, but he aspires to be as good as TLTC and studies his Palutena allot.

 

[G. Stache]

I think we should keep in mind that Falln has played the best Luigi in the world before (and lost to rather recently). That may be why he rates Luigi so highly, and they have a good Palu in the area. What region you're in certainly has an effect in your opinion. I'm sure that if you lived in the same region as ConCon or J. Miller, then you would probably put Luigi a bit higher up as well (I think that's too far up, obviously. But I don't want to get into that. Luigi drama here is legitimately worse then our FFA discussions). I tend to stay away from top/high players' opinions in general. They can be very radical, and I think that we should treat them for what they are: just another opinion.

Switching topics: who do we see as the top 3 characters in the game (and why)? After the patch, we've all seemed to gather our own opinions and I'm interested on what we think.

 

[Luco]

Paul turner can be bonkers. I dunno, against Ness and Lucas anyway she just has to sit in a particular zone and throw out Bairs and Fairs until she lands something without being truly punishable (SHPKF / Zair as Lucas sometimes works, sometimes just loses you stage control though), or she can mix-up and go for grab which is definitely punishable if spot-dodged but it's all basically one big gamble and if you win you win lots and if you lose you lose... LOTS. Palu's ledge game is also pretty good. Dthrow is powerful, she'll land Nairs at low percents, Fairs at mid percents and then at high percents you can avoid Uair by DI-ing away but it's still intimidating. Ehhhh it's just mentally straining. I suppose most chars at higher levels of play are though.

Oh yeah Fair ---> DA is a thing on her too. It's craaaazy.

EDIT: Not saying she's necessarily out of bottom 10 or whatever, but she can be really scary. One of our top players here uses her.

As for top 3 characters, I'm feeling (not ordered) with and not far behind. Rosa and ZSS are there too but just outside of those 5 IMO. Also funny, i only realised after pulling out those names that those are Falln's top 7 too.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Falln made a tier list

So many swordies misplaced, among other disagreements. Here's my stance on where they go.
S: Cloud
A: MK
B: Ike, Corrin, Toon Link, the Pits
C: Marth, Robin, Lucina, Link
D: Shulk, Swordfighter
E: Roy
Characters who can't approach against zoning (Corrin, Luigi) shouldn't be in A tier. Neither should Falcon. Kirby is only B tier if you ignore his MU spread against people who aren't Sheik/Zero Suit.

 

[LancerStaff]

But, I'd think Dark Pit would use his dark arrows (?) to charge and shoot in a straight line on stage, as a one time high damage high range projectile.

Charging against on-stage opponents doesn't work out so well since they can be jumped over. Since it's not a readily spammable projectile with fairly significant cooldown there's probably a lot more risk then reward here. Fully charged it does 10.9%, compared to Pit's 8.6%. Pit's charged arrows hit way more often because you can't really just move out of the way... You need to either dodge or shield. Since Pit can react more effectively to a dodge then an opponent could to an arrow, Pit's going to be winning this interaction a lot more.

Lol, they don't really have a name. Funnily they weren't purple in KIU, but a yellowish-green. The Silver Bow weapon that Dark Pit uses had Roy-like properties where it'd do more damage the closer you were, and actually had better homing then Pit's Palutena Bow. The Darkness Bow was more powerful and had minimal homing like what you see here, but Dark Pit never used the weapon in the story. Don't think he ever used Electroshock either... And Upperdash is supposed to be the more powerful one. Most powerful melee dash attack in the game, the attack they use in SSB4.

 

[Dinoman96]

Charging against on-stage opponents doesn't work out so well since they can be jumped over. Since it's not a readily spammable projectile with fairly significant cooldown there's probably a lot more risk then reward here. Fully charged it does 10.9%, compared to Pit's 8.6%. Pit's charged arrows hit way more often because you can't really just move out of the way... You need to either dodge or shield. Since Pit can react more effectively to a dodge then an opponent could to an arrow, Pit's going to be winning this interaction a lot more.

Lol, they don't really have a name. Funnily they weren't purple in KIU, but a yellowish-green. The Silver Bow weapon that Dark Pit uses had Roy-like properties where it'd do more damage the closer you were, and actually had better homing then Pit's Palutena Bow. The Darkness Bow was more powerful and had minimal homing like what you see here, but Dark Pit never used the weapon in the story. Don't think he ever used Electroshock either... And Upperdash is supposed to be the more powerful one. Most powerful melee dash attack in the game, the attack they use in SSB4.

Consider Dark Pit is playable both in the story and in the multiplayer, you can get him to use those weapons, so yeah.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Dark Pit uses Electroshock Arm because a dev programmed it into the game for some random reason, and so Sakurai and Namco decided to give it to him when the decision to have Dark Pit standalone was made. There's really no canon basis for it.

It gets to join Pikachu's Skull Bash, Jigglypuff's Rollout, and Luigi Missile as a move that was seemingly created on the fly and added on with little to no regard for canon or mechanical consistency.




That reminds me, why has Puff's Rollout not been adjusted to be like its canon counterpart yet? It would have made for an interesting move if it effectively defied the Stale Move Queue, and actually got stronger and stronger for each successful hit in a row. Make the first Rollout hit pitifully weak to the point she can be punished on hit if you need to, but give it similar startup to Sonic's quickest Spin Charge, and I think this would have been a wonderful move. After a few successful hits, she would have two trump cards to play with to punish you for getting hit by it so many times.

 

[falln]

hi guys. i noticed that both this tier list (and the MU based list that me and ito made a few weeks back) had generated some discussion and also differs in a lot of ways from what the internet consensus for several characters. specifically, i rate luigi/marth/lucina/kirby/palutena quite highly and wario/bowser/ike quite low. i'm not trying to get sucked into pages of debate but i am happy to give a bit of reasoning if someone would like a specific insight. i'll check the next page or so and i've also been answering questions on my twitter. this type of thing is a lot of fun for me and i promise i'm not as biased as some of these lists look.

 

[FullMoon]

It gets to join Pikachu's Skull Bash, Jigglypuff's Rollout, and Luigi Missile as a move that was seemingly created on the fly and added on with little to no regard for canon or mechanical consistency.

IIRC Pikachu can learn Skull Bash in Gen I through TM and for what it's worth Skull Bash does work similarly to how it does in the actual Pokémon games.

 

[sedrf]

Nice to meet you falln.
So how do you feel about shulk atm, do you play with nicko often?
Also how do you feel about bayo and playing vs her as rosa?

 

[sedrf]

i consider rosa to have 3-4 matchups that can fluctuate into unfavorable: sheik cloud mk olimar. from here the dynamics that determine whether rosa wins or loses vary. by understanding that rosalina is more than capable of winning all 4 of these MUs consistently then it's not a stretch to consider her the best character.

sheik - rosa loses this slightly if both players are playing at 100% capacity. but a rosa can be playing at 70% capacity to beat a sheik at 80% capacity just because of how unforgiving sheik is currently. even with a sheik player playing very well it doesn't take more than a good guess or power shield for rosa to completely turn the matchup around.

cloud - sucks for rosa in the air. she beats cloud everywhere else. this MU in particular is the one i think is the least understood by the general populace and also by other rosa mains. there are a lot of little nuances to the cloud matchup that i believe only i currently utilize properly but it's fine to not take my word for it until i am against an east coast cloud.

mk - rosa wins this in neutral but loses pretty quick the first time or two she drops neutral. you can consider this to be the inverse of the rosa:sheik but the difference is rosalina has slightly higher damage output but also less safety overall. this is a very frustrating MU if not played at 100% capacity but i don't think a good rosa player needs to sustain that type of focus for as long as sheik would due to the kill differentials.

olimar: not a very well developed MU. the neutral can be a tossup but rosa's advantage state on olimar is incredibly strong. olimar can clear luma well with fsmash and if he can lock her out from that point onwards then the MU blows but rosa can do the same thing by getting olimar to the edge and trapping him there

falln talks about rosa's negative mus

 

[Jalil]

I forgot about KO Punch, but I almost consider that one a special case of "ignores everything."

Pacmans trampoline and shulks counter are also unblockable.

 

[Hero_2_All]

hi guys. i noticed that both this tier list (and the MU based list that me and ito made a few weeks back) had generated some discussion and also differs in a lot of ways from what the internet consensus for several characters. specifically, i rate luigi/marth/lucina/kirby/palutena quite highly and wario/bowser/ike quite low. i'm not trying to get sucked into pages of debate but i am happy to give a bit of reasoning if someone would like a specific insight. i'll check the next page or so and i've also been answering questions on my twitter. this type of thing is a lot of fun for me and i promise i'm not as biased as some of these lists look.

Two questions, One did you talk with Ito on this one like your luigi and corrin match ups, or was this all self opinion? Two, our resident palutena main (Jaeden I believe) have any influence in your placing of her? He does ok and he shows good use of the tools (beats my scrub ass regularly). Was just wondering if you saw the potential of palutena a little from there, or if you always saw it.​

 

[Jamurai]

hi guys. i noticed that both this tier list (and the MU based list that me and ito made a few weeks back) had generated some discussion and also differs in a lot of ways from what the internet consensus for several characters. specifically, i rate luigi/marth/lucina/kirby/palutena quite highly and wario/bowser/ike quite low. i'm not trying to get sucked into pages of debate but i am happy to give a bit of reasoning if someone would like a specific insight. i'll check the next page or so and i've also been answering questions on my twitter. this type of thing is a lot of fun for me and i promise i'm not as biased as some of these lists look.

I very much agree on your placings for Marcina and Palutena but I'm confused about Luigi in particular. Could you expand on him? I really don't think he deserves to be above the likes of Ness.

 

[Fatmanonice]

hi guys. i noticed that both this tier list (and the MU based list that me and ito made a few weeks back) had generated some discussion and also differs in a lot of ways from what the internet consensus for several characters. specifically, i rate luigi/marth/lucina/kirby/palutena quite highly and wario/bowser/ike quite low. i'm not trying to get sucked into pages of debate but i am happy to give a bit of reasoning if someone would like a specific insight. i'll check the next page or so and i've also been answering questions on my twitter. this type of thing is a lot of fun for me and i promise i'm not as biased as some of these lists look.

I don't agree with everything you put but I greatly appreciate that you're taking the time to defend your positions. I like when people do this and give indepth answers instead of just saying things like "Mario beats Ike because of Mario stuff" and then just repeating this to the point of ad nauseum. I'd argue that it takes a lot of integrity to defend a position even if it's unpopular.

Since everyone and their grandma will probably ask you about Luigi and Palutena's placement, I'm going to ask you about why you see Pac-Man as borderline low tier because I think this is the first time I've seen an argument being made for him being anything less than middle of mid tier and ranked lower than Falco, Doc, and even Little Mac.

 

[falln]

Nice to meet you falln.
So how do you feel about shulk atm, do you play with nicko often?
Also how do you feel about bayo and playing vs her as rosa?

i've friendlied nicko's shulk a few times but both times i've met him in bracket he has played cloud. shulk's defensive options are largely underdeveloped especially with regards to the range disparity between him and a lot of the cast. you can save his mixup game for later and focus on keeping other characters out and he can do this effectively to the tier of characters i've placed him in.

rosa bayo is mad annoying but played well i do believe it's rosa's favor. a lot of times ill play kirby in this matchup though because it is easier for me.

Two questions, One did you talk with Ito on this one like your luigi and corrin match ups, or was this all self opinion? Two, our resident palutena main (Jaeden I believe) have any influence in your placing of her? He does ok and he shows good use of the tools (beats my scrub *** regularly). Was just wondering if you saw the potential of palutena a little from there, or if you always saw it.​

ito and i agreed with most matchups initially then talked out the ones we differed on until we reached a consensus. there were very few matchups we remained in disagreement on by the end of this process.

i go by results/notable players for MUs i don't understand well but i think that is generally a poor method of determining matchups or character strength because you can't expect players to perform MUs properly when the region doesn't share a notable player of that character. for example, FOW being as great as he is at the game makes ness/sheik seem not that bad but in actuality the matchup is pretty atrocious. but not all sheiks play the MU very well which is why you'll see fow do so well vs vinnie's sheik and then have a really close set with wizzrobe but then lose badly to trevonte. so to that extent no, the current pool of palutena players do not influence my perception of palutena.

 

[Routa]

falln I presume that Miis are Guest 1111, correct? I do agree on Swordspider and Brawler placing, but the Gunner placing... I'm not sure if it is a lucky guess or something els. Mind to explain?

 

[Hero_2_All]

i've friendlied nicko's shulk a few times but both times i've met him in bracket he has played cloud. shulk's defensive options are largely underdeveloped especially with regards to the range disparity between him and a lot of the cast. you can save his mixup game for later and focus on keeping other characters out and he can do this effectively to the tier of characters i've placed him in.

rosa bayo is mad annoying but played well i do believe it's rosa's favor. a lot of times ill play kirby in this matchup though because it is easier for me.


ito and i agreed with most matchups initially then talked out the ones we differed on until we reached a consensus. there were very few matchups we remained in disagreement on by the end of this process.

i go by results/notable players for MUs i don't understand well but i think that is generally a poor method of determining matchups or character strength because you can't expect players to perform MUs properly when the region doesn't share a notable player of that character. for example, FOW being as great as he is at the game makes ness/sheik seem not that bad but in actuality the matchup is pretty atrocious. but not all sheiks play the MU very well which is why you'll see fow do so well vs vinnie's sheik and then have a really close set with wizzrobe but then lose badly to trevonte. so to that extent no, the current pool of palutena players do not influence my perception of palutena.

Ok, thank you for responding.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I consider Palutena to be a similar character to Bayonetta. Obviously one is much, much better than the other, but they're both mobile characters that are designed to "cheat" in certain respects, only Bayo gets more reward off of her breaking of the rules.

Palutena has I think the only truly unblockable attack in the game that isn't a grab (though others can break shields). The issue is that it does a piddly 5%, but imagine if it activated sooner or had an active hitbox for longer. Reflect would be absurd.

Think about other characters having to edgeguard Bayonetta. She has huge hitboxes on Witch Twist and After Burner Kick, which can make even trading with her difficult. Palutena can just back air and win, and that's a luxury few other characters even get close to.

Another odd property that appears with Palutena is that her ftilt can't rebound so even if it gets Witch TImed it stays out and can't get its hit "eaten" in order to set up for a Smash.

Eh, she has the easiest to use unblockable attack, but far from the only one.

KO Punch
Vision (and custom variants thereof)
Fully charged Giant Hammer (not sure about default)
Fully charged Focus Attack (I think)
Trampoline (and custom variants) depending on how you slice it. I don't think the actual hit is unblockable, but the trampoline forces you into an airborne state so it works out to be unblockable anyway.
One of his Dimensional Cape customs ignores shields.

It wouldn't surprise me if fully charged Flare Blade was unblockable too but I don't use Roy and I don't think anyone sane would try to block it to begin with because even if it's just a shield break, that's just another fully charged Flare Blade. Witch Time might also be unblockable if you can set up a situation where you're shielding when it activates.

 

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

hi guys. i noticed that both this tier list (and the MU based list that me and ito made a few weeks back) had generated some discussion and also differs in a lot of ways from what the internet consensus for several characters. specifically, i rate luigi/marth/lucina/kirby/palutena quite highly and wario/bowser/ike quite low. i'm not trying to get sucked into pages of debate but i am happy to give a bit of reasoning if someone would like a specific insight. i'll check the next page or so and i've also been answering questions on my twitter. this type of thing is a lot of fun for me and i promise i'm not as biased as some of these lists look.

What's your opinion on Kirby? Few would think of him that highly. Most would put him around the mid or lower end of the C tier.

Also what are your thoughts on Zelda? Again few would consider her to be that high......or that....high in the bottom....if that makes sense.

 

[BarSoapSoup]

falln I think it goes without saying that I am curious of your placement of Bowser in the middle of D-Tier, almost at the bottom. Some of the characters that are higher up, like G&W, have a losing matchup to Bowser. Was there not much supportive evidence for Bowser to be higher?

EDIT: It strikes me as odd even moreso considering Donkey Kong's placement. I am not arguing Bowser is better but I will argue that Bowser is not far behind DK, so the huge gap between the two gives more reason for me to be curious.

 

[falln]

I very much agree on your placings for Marcina and Palutena but I'm confused about Luigi in particular. Could you expand on him? I really don't think he deserves to be above the likes of Ness.

luigi gets far more out of a single positive exchange than what most players realize. even concon i don't think has optimized luigi's damage output off simple things like a grab or to pressure offstage movements to lead into a cyclone gimp. common points against luigi are how characters can "keep him out" by spacing things on his shield to limit his dash options and using his traction against him but what isn't being accounted for here is that unless the luigi is choosing to eat the hits this in most cases just leads to a stalemate - one that is eventually broken once the luigi player catches on and power shields or rolls past the right move and starts his combo game into his gimp/edge trap game.

ness is overall around the same power level as luigi but while luigi might have a couple weird MUs vs certain mid/low tiers he performs better vs more of S + A than ness IMO and I weight that more due to likelihood of actually facing X mu in bracket

I don't agree with everything you put but I greatly appreciate that you're taking the time to defend your positions. I like when people do this and give indepth answers instead of just saying things like "Mario beats Ike because of Mario stuff" and then just repeating this to the point of ad nauseum. I'd argue that it takes a lot of integrity to defend a position even if it's unpopular.

Since everyone and their grandma will probably ask you about Luigi and Palutena's placement, I'm going to ask you about why you see Pac-Man as borderline low tier because I think this is the first time I've seen an argument being made for him being anything less than middle of mid tier and ranked lower than Falco, Doc, and even Little Mac.

ty i used to love doing this in brawl years ago but back then i didn't have the discipline to avoid getting sucked into the smashboards argument vortex so i stopped posting online altogether.

pacman's setups are quite counterable for most characters and the setups required to actually do the good stuff (like getting a key in your hand on non-flat wall stages) ultimately preys on the opponent being passive in the exchange. there is a sort of dead zone a lot of characters can stand against pacman that is too close for him to be able to begin his setups but too far for him to use any of his quick attacks. his privilege of being C tier on my list is basically by virtue of how flawed D tier and below are. the more i look at him i could probably keep moving him lower.

 

[falln]

What's your opinion on Kirby? Few would think of him that highly. Most would put him around the mid or lower end of the C tier.

Also what are your thoughts on Zelda? Again few would consider her to be that high......or that....high in the bottom....if that makes sense.

the things that kirby falls to can be manipulated into stalemate scenarios. he struggles intensely vs strong defensive game play but by replicating it himself + by capitalizing on the leads he can generate with his absurd damage combos at early %s he can reverse this back on other players. interestingly this is the philosophy i held while playing brawl as kirby and is why i was able to do well in matchups such as snake and marth where people would say "oh but kirby could never get in"

i love zelda more than most will ever realize but she is just again one of those characters where once you understand how to play against her she can't really do anything against anyone. 100% of her favorable exchanges comes from surprising the opponent or punishing an unforced error.

falln I presume that Miis are Guest 1111, correct? I do agree on Swordspider and Brawler placing, but the Gunner placing... I'm not sure if it is a lucky guess or something els. Mind to explain?

yes they are no customs + default weight. honestly i don't think default gunner has a single positive MU in the game.